


Faith In Tomorrow

by Badwolf36



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Description, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Nightmares, The Hale Fire (Teen Wolf)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: “Hey, hey, ssshhh,” Stiles murmurs, slotting his right hand in between Derek’s neck and his arm. “Derek, come on. It’s …” He stops himself before he can utter the word “okay,” because their lives are not “okay.” They are not “okay.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 10
Kudos: 143





	Faith In Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this gorgeous fanart and was inspired: https://geeky-sova.tumblr.com/post/109381864004/for-nykyo-who-won-my-fi-auction-thank-you-and

Stiles isn’t really sure what woke him at first.

Moonlight was still diffusing its way in through the ridiculously large windows of Derek’s loft, as opposed to the stabbing rays of the morning sun.

He reaches his hand up to scrub lightly at the scar behind his left ear, the one that marked him solely as himself, without extra passengers of the murderous fox spirit variety. He had been sleeping almost halfway decently recently, with fewer night terrors and screaming fits than previous years had netted him.

Stiles tries to recall what he was dreaming about, but the fading tendrils of the dream only give him an image of a ‘50s-style soda fountain with Coach Finstock in a little white paper hat playing the part of the soda jerk (which was just plain weird, but admittedly not the strangest thing he’s ever dreamed about).

He stares up at the high ceiling of the loft, systematically cataloging what could have woken him up and then discarding them one by one (Hungry? No. Bladder full? No. Horny? Pretty much always, but again, no.)

Taking a deep breath, he abruptly has to let it out again when he smells the sharp, metallic tang of blood. He throws the covers off himself, jerking upright even as he starts patting himself down and checking his hands (he still sees them covered in Finstock’s blood sometimes, in his dreams and even just when he lets his guard down for a moment in his waking hours).

Counting his fingers, Stiles shudders in relief as he finds that the count comes out to ten three times in a row. He’s clean too, not a trace of blood on him. He even pushes up the long sleeves of the pale-green nightshirt he’s wearing to check, but he finds nothing but smooth, clean, mole-dotted skin before he moves the cloth back down.

Confused, he counts his fingers once more. Finding ten yet again, he starts looking around the room, trying to find what woke him up and where the stench of blood is coming from.

It’s as he’s squinting at the shadowed area over by the main door that he hears it: a soft noise, barely audible even in the near silence of the loft. It’s like the first part of a cry of pain and it stills him completely because he’s only heard that noise from the man lying next to him in bed a few times (and one of them was when he was _dying_ ).

“Derek?” he whispers. Derek’s back is turned to him, but it’s obvious from what Stiles can see under the lines of his long-sleeved black sleepshirt that Derek is far too tense to be sleeping peacefully.

That half-broken whimper comes again and Stiles moves into action as gracefully as he’s ever managed, curling his body over Derek’s and wrapping his right arm around the other man’s chest. He presses the center of his forehead to Derek’s right temple and lets his nose press against Derek’s cheek.

He takes in the situation as quickly as he can. Derek’s right arm is wrapped around the side of the mattress, and from the way the bedding is bending inward, Stiles is positive that his claws are embedded in the side of the box spring. His gaze drifts upwards, and he almost whimpers himself when he sees that Derek’s left hand is fisted in his hair, the claws at the end of his fingers drawing blood from his scalp.

“Hey, hey, ssshhh,” Stiles murmurs, slotting his right hand in between Derek’s neck and his arm. He slowly starts to slide his hand up, gently trying to break Derek’s grip on himself. “Derek, come on. It’s …” He stops himself before he can utter the word “okay,” because their lives are not “okay.” _They_ are not “okay.”

He hums softly instead, an old lullaby that his mother used to sing to him, even if he can hardly remember what she sounds like now.

Derek draws in a breath that stutters too many times to be anything like useful.

“Come on, Derek.” Stiles moves his hand a little further up, pressing his palm against Derek’s ear and the back of his hand against Derek’s palm.

“Ple…” Derek whispers, and Stiles presses his body a little closer to the supernatural warmth of Derek’s. It’s intimate in a way that feels strange. Stiles takes a moment to wonder if this is how Derek feels when he’s comforting Stiles after a nightmare, this bizarre, cracked-open feeling like he wants to take Stiles away from the world and hide him where no one could ever find him or hurt him again. Derek speaks again before he can make a resolution to ask him. “No. No, you …”

“Derek,” Stiles says even louder this time, threading his fingers through Derek’s tightly clenched ones and pushing against the side of his head so he can stop Derek from hurting himself further. Stiles had asked him about the healing once while they were out in the Preserve one afternoon, looking around for signs of a stray omega (and he may have had Wolverine from the “X-Men” in mind when he did, but it hadn’t made the question less valid). And Derek had told him the truth in the bluntest way possible.

_“It still hurts. It still causes just as much agony as it would to you. And when the healing kicks in, if you don’t have to kickstart it with more pain, it burns. At first, it’s just a little itch. But it’s your cells regenerating, Stiles. You should have taken enough science classes by now to know about how it works. And it burns._

_“Now imagine if you were burned, burned over and over again and you kept trying to heal, which just doubles the sensation. And burning and healing and burning and burning and …”_

Stiles had finally had to slap his hand over Derek’s mouth to make him stop. Derek had stepped away from him a moment later. He’d stripped off all his clothing without saying another word and shifted into his wolf form. Taking one last look at Stiles with eyes that were too full of emotion, Derek had run into the trees, leaving Stiles to gather Derek’s clothes as he tried not to vomit at the thought of Derek’s family and what they must have gone through the night of the fire.

“Derek, please. Come back. Nothing’s hurting you but you. Just come back. Please.”

Derek whines, a noise more animal than human, before his hand abruptly crushes Stiles’ as he twists his claws deeper into his head.

“Derek,” he gasps, feeling the bones in his hand grind together. The scent of blood grows richer. “Please, just wake up.”

“Ungh … Stiles?” Derek asks in a whisper, and Stiles nods, his nose brushing Derek’s cheek.

“You’re safe in the loft. You’re here with me. Just me. We’re safe right now. We’re …”

“There was so much blood,” Derek says. “We were … you were … my …” He cuts himself off, and Stiles can see his eyes widening. “It smells like blood, Stiles.”

“Just calm yourself down. That’s all you have to do.” Stiles blinks back the tears pricking up at the corners of his eyes both from the agony of having his hand crushed and seeing Derek like this. “Just draw back the shift. Can you do that?”

Derek nods, and Stiles can feel the stiff muscles he’s pressed up against relax the slightest bit.

“That’s it. That’s it. Keep going.” Derek unwinds bit by bit, and then all at once, like he’s remembered how to breathe.

Stiles very manfully doesn’t pull his hand back the moment the tension loosens, but he does flex it a bit in Derek’s grip. Derek still notices it.

“Did I hurt you?”

Stiles thinks about lying for a half-second before he realizes Derek would catch it and feel even worse. “Not bad. Might just be a little bruised.”

“I’m so sorry.” He twists his Stiles’ arms until he can face him. “I didn’t want…I wouldn’t.”

“Hey, hey, I’ll be fine. We both will. Eventually. Regression to the mean, just like Scott and Deaton say, right?”

Derek buries his face against Stiles’ chest. “Right,” he says, the word muffled through the fabric of Stiles’ nightshirt.

“Want to try going back to sleep?” The shaking of Derek’s head is immediate and swift.

“Okay, we don’t have to. Want to just stay like this for a while?” Hesitation, then a small nod. Stiles readjusts his grip on Derek, tucking the larger man into his side as best he can. “Okay. Whatever you need.”

There’s a shaky exhale, and Stiles genuinely isn’t sure which of them it comes from. The dark tension in the room starts to dissipate as they lay there, bathed in the glow of moonlight and distant streetlamps.

In the morning, they’ll soak the sheets in cold water so the bloodstains won’t set, assess whether Stiles needs to see a doctor for his hand, and bump hips as they dance around one another in the kitchen as they make blueberry waffles.

But for now, in their quiet bedroom, they’ll just breathe one another in and have faith that tomorrow will come.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the fic. I love reading them!


End file.
